


forever is the sweetest con

by comfortcharacters



Series: evermore collection [9]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Western, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Canon-Typical Behavior, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Sexual Tension, gun play but like. akira style, t for language and akira being akira, this is 1800s cowboy akechi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29012061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comfortcharacters/pseuds/comfortcharacters
Summary: Akechi didn't know what he expected from the rundown bar, standing on the outskirts of the Western town that he calls home.He got more than he bargained for when a pair of familiar eyes met him across the room.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Series: evermore collection [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2053434
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	forever is the sweetest con

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluehat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluehat/gifts).



> this fic was inspired by taylor swift's "cowboy like me"
> 
> edit: this was originally called "you're a bandit like me"

Akechi, frankly, has had enough of the desert.

The sun blares down on him relentlessly, forcing a sweat to crawl up through his clothes and stay there. His loose cotton shirt was meant to billow in the wind, offering much needed circulation throughout his upper half, but the current absence of any semblance of air flow meant that the shirt stuck to his skin instead and became far more form fitting than he ever intended. His signature cowboy hat offers some protection from the sun, at the very least, but it’s barely enough to stop the overheating in the rest of his body. With every growing moment, his patrol around the main street grows more and more tiresome, his once-pristine riding boots dragging sand in their wake with every step. 

He needs a drink. And he needs it now.

He considers trekking down to the town square, where every respectable establishment has laid its claim and where a deputy like him would be expected to partake in an afternoon of socially-permissible debauchery. But the idea of taking another walk, of exposing himself to the elements anew, is almost more abhorrent than the idea of the townspeople finding him at some rundown establishment on the wayside.

While he’s grateful to the job of deputy offered to a traveler like him, he’s starting to regret ever thinking he could become Sheriff so quickly in a bustling Western town, where people talk and gossip and find every reason imaginable to consider him unfit for the position. 

(Whether they’re right with their suspicions is a secret Akechi would die to keep.)

The air stills even further, and Akechi finds that his canteen is empty. A rather inviting, albeit unknown and therefore dangerous, establishment greets him when he raises his eyes, standing on the outskirts of his small town. 

Sweat drips off his nose. To hell with his reputation. 

Akechi walks in with purpose, throwing open the door and letting the stagnant, yet significantly cooler, air wash over him in waves. He sighs contentedly and examines his surroundings, as he always does before entering somewhere new: a couple of stragglers cower in the corners, nursing beers in solitude; sunlight filters in from either side of the small room, striking off the wooden panels and bathing the room in a rustic glow; a black-haired man, similar in age and stature, stares back at Akechi from the other side of the counter, eyes wide in alarm while the rest of his body stands in complete stillness. 

Odd. Akechi’s almost certain he’s never met him before, but he could’ve sworn that something akin to fear flashed across his face in the few fateful seconds that they held eye contact. Akechi doesn’t have much time to ponder the situation before the man, presumably the bartender, goes back to wiping down his workspace.

His eyes glance up briefly, seemingly surprised that Akechi hasn’t taken a seat. And, as confused as he may be, Akechi is never one to back away from a new situation.

“Good afternoon,” Akechi says, the very picture of politeness as he rests in the center stool, “I’ll take a beer, please.” 

And he waits.

Akechi watches as the bartender fills up the glass, practiced ease guiding his motions, stray hairs falling over his face, hand muscles flexing around the bottle. Akechi rarely allows himself to _look_ , especially in recent years, but he can always appreciate the presence of an attractive newcomer. 

Especially one that’s already managed to entice him within a minute of them meeting.

The bartender looks over at Akechi, this time in remarkable proximity, and Akechi’s breath hitches. 

This time, he’s the one caught off guard. 

Panic seizes him, yet keeps him firmly rooted in his seat, unable to look away, save face, or hide from the bartender’s knowing look. 

Akechi thought he was clever, hiding out in plain sight and climbing up the ranks, thousands of miles from the East Coast towns where he made his home a number of years ago. But he should’ve known that the past wasn’t easy to outrun, not when someone just as clever as him was on the loose. 

Those eyes. Those damn eyes. 

Those eyes that challenged and taunted him in New York’s grimy underground, fighting him for control of the petty crime that ran rampant in the city. The ones that followed him through alleyways, making their devious way into his dreams at night. The ones that he couldn’t break contact with even when he tried.

And now, staring back at the man he hasn’t seen in years, he stops trying.

The bartender smiles when he realizes that he’s been recognized, almost turning bashful when Akechi looks at him dumbfoundedly. 

_Doesn’t he realize I can turn him in for thievery?_

_Don’t you realize, deputy, that I could do the same?_ the bartender’s smirk replies, as if he can read the thoughts flashing through Akechi’s mind, as if he can still read him as easily as he used to. 

They’re left firmly at an impasse. Akechi desperately needs that beer.

An onlooker watches from the booth in the corner, flitting his eyes suspiciously between the bartender and Akechi, who’ve both been silent for far too long for it to be natural. He looks away when Akechi narrows his eyes in his direction, but it’s too late. 

Akechi has been seen. And, no matter how much the bartender has been infuriating him, he has to keep emotions from boiling over. 

“Thank you,” Akechi says, clearing his throat while looking past his shoulder. “For the beer, I mean.”

“Kurusu,” the bartender replies to the unspoken question, sliding the first cool beer of the afternoon to Akechi with a twinkle in his eye. “Call me Kurusu.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“But you sure wanted to.”

Akechi drains the glass and slams it on the table. He slides the glass over and Kurusu refills it silently, sliding it back over before going to check on the few remaining customers and close up their tabs. By the time he returns, Akechi has drained his second glass, and Kurusu grabs it from his hand directly, already prepared for his request. Their fingers meet and Akechi nearly breaks the glass on impact. 

He takes his sweet time with the third one, deputy duties long forgotten. Akechi’s seething silently and wondering if he, running from the law all the way to the final frontier, is still well and truly fucked. 

“Another round. Make it quick,” Akechi says, narrowing his eyes at the bartender faithfully ignoring him on the other side of the aisle. He’s been here for far too long, he muses, and between tasteless beers slid haphazardly in his direction and piercing stares that he throws in return, the bar became truly deserted. 

Despite being the only customer, Akechi continues to get ignored.

“I said, I want another round.”

Silence, and a self-satisfied smirk on the bartender’s mouth, meets the disbelief radiating from Akechi.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough, deputy?” Kurusu replies after a beat too long, turning his head in Akechi’s direction. “Last I recall, you were never good at holding down your liquor.”

“Have you forgotten yourself? I work for the Sheriff’s office, _bar boy_ , I’m not one of your drinking buddies,” Akechi sneers, just as the bartender turns back around, glances over his shoulder, and seems to shrug. He goes back to wiping down the counter and Akechi adjusts his hat indignantly.

“Back in New York, all you had to do was ask,” Kurusu replies, right before Akechi can start another tirade. “We could’ve been a team instead of fighting over targets. The rest of ‘em would’ve been happy to meet you and split the profits.”

“Like I would’ve wanted to join _your_ group after the stunts you pulled. I’m surprised you didn’t get _murdered_ after targeting officials and mafia bosses for heists,” Akechi spits out, remembering all the close brushes with authority he had over crimes much less sophisticated and dangerous. “Or was your moral superiority so strong that you couldn’t just rob ordinary people like the rest of us?”

Akechi’s mind flashes back over the shouting matches under train tracks, two nameless thieves begging the other to reconsider and join them on the other side, each fighting for what they thought was right. 

“Well, you’re on the run now too, _Akechi_ ,” Kurusu says blankly, even as Akechi’s blood freezes over hearing his name fall from his lips for the first time in their acquaintance, “so how does that make you any better than us?”

Akechi’s face hardens. He stands from the stool, using his natural height difference and heel to his advantage, towering ever so slightly over the man who’s back to looking at him in amusement.

“Kurusu, either you shut that mouth of yours, or I _promise_ you that I’ll do it for you.”

Kurusu smiles. 

“I would never deprive you of the pleasure. Feel free to do your best to make me, _deputy_.”

That’s all it takes before Akechi pulls the revolver out of his holster and presses the barrel a hair’s width from the bartender’s lips. Kurusu has the gall to smile.

“Fully loaded, I presume? Or are you taking chances today?” Kurusu murmurs, brushing his lips closer with every word. Akechi narrows his eyes, unable to keep from staring deep into the bartender’s. Kurusu hasn’t blinked once, letting his eyes cascade down the curve of Akechi’s cheek, gliding over the shape of Akechi’s jaw, resting in finality on Akechi’s lips curved in dissatisfaction.

Akechi clenches his open hand into a fist against the counter’s edge. 

“One wrong move, Kurusu, and you’ll be bleeding out on the floor of your own damn bar.”

Akechi has just the one bullet, five slots away from the one prepared to fire, but Kurusu doesn’t need to know that.

“I think I’ll take my chances,” Kurusu says, pulling his eyes back to stare into Akechi’s open, disbelieving ones. Akechi should’ve seen it coming, but his breath stutters and his mind screeches to an unfortunate halt with every passing second, tension hanging in the air and stretching out to feel like hours. Kurusu is still a live wire all these years later, belying his unassuming appearance at every turn, delivering a shock to Akechi’s body with every motion. But nothing could’ve prepared Akechi for the moment when Kurusu’s lips slowly, tantalizingly, make their way around the barrel. Life and death hang in the precipice, but all Akechi can see is his own breath fogging up Kurusu’s glasses as he hollows his cheeks, raises his eyebrows, and smiles like he was meant for it.

“ _Akira!_ ”

A plate shatters in the distance. Akira startles, temporarily interrupted in his monologue. 

“We were just getting to the good part!” he exclaims, twisting around on the couch to look back at the source of the commotion.

Goro stares at him from the kitchen, a blush resting firmly on his cheeks as he gapes in his direction.

“Akira, I get everything else, but _that’s_ the height of your fantasy? Me shoving a gun in your mouth?” Goro asks in disbelief, still standing over the shards and making no move to clean them up.

“Are you surprised? Or did you forget our honeymoon phase already?” Akira teases, coming up behind Goro, wrapping his arms around his middle, and nuzzling his cheek fondly. 

A few years earlier, Goro might’ve bristled when thinking about his first year at Akira’s side, traumatic memories coloring any fond moments in between, guilt outweighing any happiness. Now, a decade or so of therapy later, he rolls his eyes and looks incredulously at Akira over his shoulder. 

“I wouldn’t call that year a _honeymoon phase_ , Akira.”

“Speak for yourself,” Akira says, looking off wistfully. Goro snorts. “This is _my_ fantasy, Goro. Either get with it or I’ll stop storytelling.”

“Akira, that’s ridiculous. Please continue.”

Goro joins Akira on the couch, dinner plans abandoned as Akira builds his elaborate tale further. He continues gasping at the appropriate times, contorting his face in disbelief, and letting himself get swept up in the fantasy. 

“And then, you say… ‘this is where your justice ends, _pardner_ ’ before firing the gun,” Akira says earnestly. 

Goro hits him with a pillow, just as earnestly.

But he really can’t complain when Akira finds his home on top of Goro’s chest and wrapped in Goro’s arms, playing with the ring on Goro’s finger and smiling. Goro hooks his head over Akira’s shoulder, kisses Akira’s cheek, and holds him close. 

“We should do that more often,” Akira murmurs, half asleep already, “I think I like storytelling.” Goro acquiesces easily, more than happy to be the listener for a change. 

After all, in every story, Goro knows he’d find his way back to Akira again.

_Epilogue_

Akechi strides in, looking gorgeous, put-together, and not-at-all entranced by the bartender at the front. He immediately goes to the shadowy figure in the back and snatches his hat off, revealing a head of poorly dyed blonde hair and a mustache to match.

He hits him over the side of the head.

“What the _eff_ , man?” the Ryuji-esque figure replies, holding his head and pouting.

_“Goro!”_

_“You said I could get a turn. This is _my_ teenage fantasy, Akira.”_

**Author's Note:**

> *head in hands* I couldn't get the thought of cowboy akechi out of my mind
> 
> huge thank you to bluehat for drawing akechi in a cowboy hat once and writing the line "this is where your justice ends, pardner." everything snowballed after that.
> 
> say hi on [twt!](https://twitter.com/comfrtcharacter)


End file.
